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The Golden Rule
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Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?
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New York Post Claims Census Falsifies Unemployment Figures
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How Many Jobs Are Needed to Keep Up with Population Growth?
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VAT or Value Added Tax is Getting a Look in D.C.
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U3 and U6 Unemployment during the Great Depression
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House discusses 401k/IRA confiscation
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The war on the middle class
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Tax Cuts for the Rich Do Not Generate Jobs
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I don't think just stopping all guest worker Visas or immigration is realistic. That said, stopping the guest worker Visas increases (h-1b) and passing reforms like the Grassley-Durbin S.1035 would go a long way in helping the US middle class.
It appears more and more economists are starting to discuss the effects of globalization on the overall economy, beyond jobs.
I'll consider that one for a new site feature, "forward to your congress representative". I cannot believe how much misinformation, inaccurate statements on economic statistics I've heard/read in letters to constituents, in the press, floor speeches,, so excellent suggestion MikeR!
Charles McMillion's article should be read by every journalist and member of Congress. However, he ought to have pointed out that the "new paradigm" isn't new at all.
Since our country was founded, the holy grail of the financial elite was to "end the barriers to free trade" to make themselves wealthy and dismantle the middle class at the same time.
What's new about the "new paradigm" is that we've had 28 years of executive branch complicity in globalization.
Ask yourselves one question -
How's it working for you?
Lets see how the madness goes:
We sell China missile guidance systems - they blow up a few satellites to test it.
China sets up a Cyber Warfare unit in their military - and some people want them to have the company which does security hardware and software for the World Wide Web ie 3Com? China has been caught hacking us and allies over and over again so lets sell them 3Com so they can be king of the internet.
Our Congress is threatened by several major software vendors that they will move R&D and training offshore for potential workers. Duh.... theyve already done that.
We allow certain countries the ability to sell cars in the US but we cannot sell cars there. I could go on and on.
The scary thing is either Congress gets it and they are doing the mirrors and smoke thing - or they are really that dumb - both speak loudly that its time for an overhaul. Only we can do that in the election booth.
http://www.madnamerica.com
I link to the CBO's quick spreadsheet where they claim investing in public works will have a small effect. I don't know how they get that for intuitively it would improve much neglected public infrastructure which generates business, jobs for Americans, buying of US raw materials and should keep any deficit spending at least within the United States.
This is a fantastic edition, I keep hoping the real economists will consider blogging for the main stream media simply does not cover the details as they need to be brought to light.
In your graphs and analysis from your MBG Information Services organization, one can see where the U.S. is losing economically because the data point is right there in the graph. (for example the China tariff schedule) .
Most people only know something is dramatically wrong, but have no idea what is even meant by free trade versus "fair trade" and statements like "have labor and environmental standards".
Without actually finding books and journal articles by and for economists, that level of detail just does not get out there to the layperson.
Bob,those numbers and the statistics gathered by D of L have been problematic for years.
The outsourcing one is especially misleading as you point out. I remember the number "51" as the value for jobs lost to outsourcing offshore in the 2004 January listing and the Q. I had "??? what is this? " When I knew of the closing of Carrier/United Technologies to move to Singapore.
The reason was simple and a perfect out:
The company in Singapore was still owned by UT/Carrier. The requirement by the Bureau of Labor statistics was to report any closing of more than 50 in number lost, unless the jobs were transferred to a new location and not actually deducted from the company's count. So the 4100 jobs that vanished from New York magically reappeared in Singapore without the New Yorkers. So no need to report it as outsourced. In fact ,the separate listing for companies no longer in existence inside the USA (out of business or totally outsourced was getting to be so cumbersome it got deleted as a category in itself. Later in 2004. The defense for this is: the company is in business, profits are rolling in , what's the problem? Even though Americans just got shafted /RIFTED, turned out to scramble on a shrinking in most cases job market. The figures hide the facts for the American workers.
Those numbers that consistently underreport unemployment based on state Division of Unemployment Compensation transaction figures also drops the count when those 26 weeks are up. There is no follow up about new or re-employment in the same industry, it is left to announcements by the companies self reporting about their status.
The whole Dep of Labor is an embarrassment and headaches Washington politicians. it often reveals some bad news that annoys the people doing propaganda about how wonderful the economy is and creates a spark to maybe do something about it. There is a grudging allowance for it, but I feel its reporting is more and more intended to disguise trends, not have an honest accounting to guide policy decisions. That is our corporate masters and their hirelings in Washington (a.k.a.politicians) at work.
I would have to guess improving the nations infrastructure is the most beneficial way that money could be spent. The money would stay here and help employ people in the construction trade who have taken the brunt (so far) of the slowdown. At least our children will be able to use the roads and bridges of which they are footing the bill. Its only fair and thats why this administration does is against the idea.
Social security is solvent to 2040 they have stolen the money for themselves and their buddies like Blackwater. Its criminal.
They also claim we cannot have social security or health care on top of it. Not one mention of the DoD, this massive military budget.
We need enough Americans to start demanding policy that is in our best and long terms interests.
I don't buy the CBO putting "unknown" of the benefits of investing in public works, US infrastructure on their stimulus analysis spreadsheet.
After all they are "lending " you another $300. Do we think the generations to follow are not going to be bitter. Our children and our childrens children that will stagger under the weight of an $10,500,000,000,000 thats 10.5 trillion dollars like the blog says. Bush alone has stolen 6 trillion dollars from your kids and slid it to his rich friends. I don't know about you but that enrages me.
It appears private, class action, private
law firms sue IBM
Was the IBM lawsuit initiated by the DOL?
I think a position paper on why this is a horrific idea is the first
step. I don't think this should be so hard to put together
considering we have a potential economic tsunami coming our way. The
evidence is already overwhelming that the H-1B is a global labor
arbitrage vehicle
and 300k (at once?) would clearly decimate working professionals in the
US.
_______________________________________________
This country is already over 300M and growing fast and correlating population to universal health care is something I haven't heard much of.
I'd probably think that total income, the fact the US is becoming so economically divided, so many poor, that ratio might be the bigger problem economically.
Looks like we need some more experts who are not writing for some corporation, lobby organization, "special interest" to sum up for us.
My husband asked if it was easier for smaller countries to have universal health care for all their citizens. Not being an economist, I didn't have a good answer for him other than "Well then either we find a way to cover everybody or we break into three or more countries."
But I'd like your help on this.
Henry Kravis is the epitome of crassness. Greenwald exposes greed gone mad. I hope this gets more exposure. Nobody I know is anti-business . We are just anti-bad business. And Kravis sinks to the bottom of the barrel in my book of thieves.
True- we don't have a bill number, but we also don't have anyone in D.C. watching the committees.
There are straight-shooters out there (Dorgan, Tester, McCaskil, Sanders....) who might dedicate a staff member part-time.
But I need to read this more carefully, tomorrow.
The winter of Discontent
He says:
Right on, this is the issue, they are moving fantasy money around versus being an econony of real goods and services production.
This might shock you but Milton Friedman called labor arbitrage a subsidy
I really found that one interesting for while I think his work on fiscal policy is interesting, I don't subscribe to much of what he advanced, yet even from the free enterprise perspective he was saying labor subsidies (in effect) skew the results.
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